As A Political Blogger, I Am Legally Required To Write About This

As you may have noticed, I have not been 1/1000th as obsessed with the Lamont/Leiberman race as most of my fellow liberal political bloggers. Perhaps it's because I despise the word "Netroots." Maybe it's because I am uncomfortable with challenging Democrats in primaries when we're trying to take back the Congress. Or maybe it's just because everything else is already being said.

I am very happy that the race is today, so I won't have to hear about it any more.

But I will make one thing clear: I hope Lieberman loses big. If he loses small, then he is more likely to run as an independent and threaten our hold on that Senate seat. If he wins, then we'll have to watch him defend the Bush Administration on Fox News for the next 2 years. He will feel vindicated by his victory and liberated from any loyalty to the Democratic Party.

Relatedly, I also feel required to comment on a recent post by Bull Moose. In it he claims that while he is unhappy by the disastrous economic policies of the Republicans and pleased by the new social moderation of Democrats, as a hawk he has no real political home any more. He would align himself more fully with the Democrats if he did not feel that

... on national security issues the party is regressing back to the glory days of the early seventies. In their reflexive opposition to everything Bush, Democrats too often appear weak on fighting the war against Jihadist terror. The left has a knee-jerk negative reaction to every assertion of Presidential prerogative in using surveillance against our enemies. Some lefties want to censure or even impeach the President for being overly aggressive in defending the country. And many lefties in the party reject even the notion of a war against terror.

Since this is a key Republican talking point, I think that it is worth responding to. First I reject the correlation between the so-called "War on Terrorism" and the "War on Iraq." The Democratic Party has rejected the latter, but not the former. It is the Republicans who have little interested in fighting Jihadists except as symbolic actions and "security risks" are useful at election time. As for the Iraq War itself, is Moose honestly telling me that our present policy is working? I will concede that there are many on my left who just want to pick up and leave tomorrow, but most Democrats would be happy with a phased withdrawal or even just a statement that we won't be there forever. I ask Moosie, what is his policy for restoring the situation? As far as I can tell, Iraq is simply a lost cause.

The issue of domestic surveillance is what made me decide to shift Moose from my liberal blogroll to my conservative blogroll. I am of course perfectly supportive of the aggressive use of intelligence-gathering to fight terrorism. But without a warrant or any form of judicial or congressional oversight? Are you kidding?

As for lefties demanding censure or impeachment, I think this motivation has less to do with criticizing the President for "defending the country" than it does his willful disregard for the Constitution.

Bull Moose's problem is that he is obsessed with his desire for absolute security and order. Even moderate external or internal threats sending him scurrying in the direction of authoritarian rule. This is a very understandable reaction, a very natural thing to do. But it is scarcely compatible with a free society.